He had remembered that conversation, last night, even through the anguish he felt at her death. He had decided that she was right, that he needed to go back and take care of things at home. Only by accomplishing that could he be the kind of man Michelle deserved. And even though she would no longer know it, that was the kind of man he meant to become.

Seeing that to try to act against the police who had taken Cetra was purely suicidal, he turned and ran toward home. There were things hidden in his apartment that he would need, if only he could get to them before the building was flattened. Michelle had helped him acquire authentic identification papers in the name of Joe Brady, and a second set in the name of Henry Blue in case the Brady name became compromised somehow. And there was some cash set aside there, since Hazimot operated on a largely monetary basis, and he would need that as well.

The streets were almost impassable now. Everywhere, buildings Kyle had grown accustomed to were burning. Fire licked at the edges of windows or spat high through broken roofs, all accompanied by a crackling roar. Instead of dissipating the smoke, the omnipresent winds just fanned the flames and spread smoke everyplace. Kyle inhaled great hot lungfuls of it and began coughing before he even reached home. Refugees, driven out of their own last-resort housing, clogged the streets, clutching infants and threadbare belongings to their breasts, holding children and lovers by the hands. Many were weeping openly, others angry and scared, readying weapons or looking for an escape route. The thunder of heavy artillery filled Kyle’s ears, and the concussive shock of explosions rattled his bones. He felt much as he had that day on Starbase 311—terrified, overwhelmed, and bordering on hopeless. However, he was not experiencing any flashbacks. None of the crowd turned into Tholians, the noises around him sounded like artillery, not those awful Tholian hand-weapons. Under other circumstances, he might be pleased by this, but not right now.

After working his way through the crowd, clenching his lips against the grit and smoke and dust that filled the air, he finally made his way to the building in which he’d lived these many months. The building in which he’d met Michelle, and loved her so powerfully. It stood there, dun colored through the thick smoke, its few remaining windows shattered by the blasts and gaping dumbly at him, and he ran for it as if it offered shelter from the insanity that surrounded him.

Of course, it didn’t.

Inside, he couldn’t see any of the residents, just a pack of looters, youthful Cyrians, mostly, who were busily trying to make off with what few possessions of value had been left behind. Kyle felt he should challenge them, but then common sense won out. Anything not already claimed would be rubble anyway, soon enough, when this building was flattened like the rest of The End. Instead of confronting the looters, he just shoved past them and dashed up the stairs, hoping they hadn’t yet raided his apartment.

In fact, when he burst through his door there were three muscular Cyrian males ransacking his place. “Get out!” he snarled at them. They spun around to face him, one dropping an armload of his clothing on the floor.

“This one’s ours,” he said, almost calmly. “There are plenty of other places you can pilfer.”

“No!” Kyle shot back. “This one’s mine. All that stuff is mine. Like you say, there are plenty of other places—leave my things alone.”

One of the Cyrians laughed out loud. “Yours? You lost any claim to this place when you walked out the door. You don’t defend what’s yours, it’s not yours any longer.” He bunched his huge hands into fists.

Kyle normally didn’t care much about material possessions—he had left behind an apartment full of them on Earth, almost two years ago now—but this was quickly becoming a matter of principle as well as survival. “You know what?” he asked, feeling the tension flow out of him and a remarkable sense of peace take its place. “I’m having a bad day. A very bad day, in fact. The woman I loved died, my neighborhood is being taken apart piece by piece, and all my friends are either under arrest or missing. There’s nothing I’d love more right now than to tear you all apart, one by one.

“We got what we need,” one of the Cyrians said with some reluctance. “Let’s go.”

The others grumbled, but that one seemed to be in charge, and they finally indicated their assent. They all dropped what they held and made their way to the door, trying to give Kyle as wide a berth as they could. He knew they’d destroy him in a fight, of course—he was just one man, and although he was strong and athletic and driven by fury, Cyrians in general were bigger and more powerfully built than even the biggest humans. But he figured anyone who’d loot the homes of people driven out by invasion wasn’t the bravest guy on the block, and even with numbers on their side, these looters would rather have easy pickings in uninhabited apartments than risk injury or worse at his hands.

When they were gone, he went to the hiding place where he had stashed his money and false identification papers, under a loose floorboard concealed by his bed. He shoved the bed aside and pried up the board, and everything was still where he’d left it, wrapped in a cloth bag. He scooped it all up and pocketed it, then did a quick scan to see if there was anything else he needed. Clothing and toiletries would be nice, but he could always acquire more, and he didn’t want to look like a man who was traveling. He ended up grabbing a holoimage of Michelle and stuffing it into a pocket, and then he left the rest for the looters.

The first barrage hit the building while he was still running down the stairway. The whole structure shook under the assault. Plaster flew, and a wall opposite him imploded into dust. The staircase groaned and swayed. Kyle gripped the banister to steady himself and continued down, hurtling five and six steps at a time. He heard screams and shouts from elsewhere in the building—probably the looters, he suspected, since he hadn’t seen any of the residents around. At least, he hoped it was them—poetic justice if they were trapped inside the building when it came down.

Another wave hit and this time more walls blew in. Dust and debris rained down on Kyle. Above, he saw powerful energy beams lance through the walls, leaving further destruction in their wake. He leapt the last flight of stairs and landed awkwardly on the lobby floor, his feet slipping out from beneath him on the slick, dust-coated tiles. But he caught himself on his palms, righted himself and sprinted for the door.

Outside, he saw machines of war rolling toward the building, already loosing another fusillade against it. Infantry troops supported the tanks. They spotted Kyle running from the building, but ignored him; just another homeless refugee. When he was almost a block away he heard another, still louder boom, and glanced back to see most of his building collapse in a massive cloud.

The rest of the day had passed, like the building, in the cloud of dust and smoke—mostly obscured, always uncertain, never far from danger. He worked his way out of The End, joining the throngs of other refugees trying to escape the morning assault. Once beyond the boundaries of the neighborhood, the castaways scattered into every direction. The Cyrian authorities didn’t seem to have developed any kind of a plan except for the attack. There was no one except the soldiers to provide any direction for the refugees, and they didn’t seem to have a clue, which meant no order to the evacuation. The newly homeless drifted wherever they chose. Some keened or wailed in their sadness, but most simply wept quietly or were silent, faces caked and streaked with tears, eyes wide and haunted. Most didn’t seem to have any plan or goal, which was the main thing that set them apart from Kyle.